Small Connections
by storytellergirl
Summary: He wasn't looking to connect to her, but at the same time, there was something that made them the same. One-Shot.


**Disclaimer:** The characters do not belong to me, nor does the game and its little universe.

/

"You look a bit like a girl I used to know," stated Leon after a swig of his drink.

"You don't look like anyone I used to know," returned Tifa flatly.

Leon shrugged. "I was just making conversation."

"If that was your version of a conversation, please don't. I'd rather suffer in silence."

Another shrug. "There's not a whole lot else we can do while we're waiting for someone to unlock the door."

"Silence, remember?"

"Bitch." Leon cringed the moment the word escaped his lips. He hadn't _actually_ meant to say that aloud, so when Tifa pulled the flask out of his hand to take the last swig, he could hardly protest.

Tifa made a face as she drank the last of the flask, turning to Leon with an accusing glare. "Grape juice, _seriously_?"

Leon gave yet another shrug. "Aerith was in charge of supplies today, and she has this thing against alcohol. Or she has this thing against _me_ and alcohol. I don't think she's ever tried to hand Cid any grape juice in a flask before."

"Wise woman," replied Tifa. It was the first time she had said something that hadn't come across as sarcastic or biting with Leon, and he couldn't help but do a double take of her from across the floor of the gummi ship.

Since her arrival a few weeks back he had been doing a lot of double takes where Tifa was concerned. He'd done it when he had first seen her, mistaking her for Rinoa Heartilly, a girl he had once known. He'd given her another look when he saw her single-handedly pin Cid to the ground face-first, telling him to mind his own business when it came to her and Cloud. And he'd given her a double take the night he watched her down shot after shot of hard liquor like nobody's business, and not look the least bit hung-over the day after. Tifa was unlike anyone he had ever met, and it was hard to know how to get a genuine feel for her because she kept herself closed off from everyone else.

So far he'd figured out that she was connected to Cloud, who was in turn connected to Sephiroth. She'd known Aerith and Cid before their time in Traverse Town. He had heard rumors that she had used to run a bar or something, which probably accounted for her ability to hold her liquor. And she was a fighter, one that didn't need anything but her fists to do damage to another person.

But that was all Leon knew about her, and it kind of frustrated him that this was all he knew – half of which had been learned from other people and by simply watching her. For someone that was pretty closed off himself, it was surprising that Leon hated not knowing anything about _who_ Tifa was as a person. He didn't normally give a damn about those kinds of things; he actually preferred it. Keeping people at arm's length kept him focused on whatever task was at hand… like helping rebuild a world he barely remembered.

What he knew about Tifa was probably as much as he knew about anyone else, and yet… Leon just couldn't let it go.

He figured it had to do with his recognizing aspects of himself in her. She was angry and grief-stricken all in one, kind of like he had been after his home had been destroyed, and everyone he had once known and cared for had been ripped away from him. She was still grappling with something – probably to do with that Cloud guy – and it showed. Had it shown this much with Leon when he had first arrived and been taken in by Cid? Leon honestly couldn't remember. It wasn't like he was really any better off than he had been all those years ago. He had managed to bury all of his demons better than most, but looking at Tifa now, it was like they had never gone away.

That alone should have made him hate her, but it didn't. And there was no rhyme or reason for it.

He really hoped that this weird feeling of understanding and a potential desire for connection with someone wasn't Aerith's doing. He was willing to blame that sort of thing on her, which meant he had been around her and Cid for way too long. He knew Cid had been growing softer in recent months, but Leon hadn't thought he was going down that same road.

But why else would he have taken any sort of interest in a woman that clearly didn't want to be taken notice of?

"It's the hair," said Leon suddenly, the words popping out of his mouth before he could stop them.

"Excuse me?" Tifa had been seemingly lost in her own thoughts, startled back to the present when Leon had spoken. She gave him a look – a half frown that told him she was annoyed at his speaking again.

"Your hair. Rinoa had dark hair like you. And kind of the same face… shape. From a distance that 's who you look like. But up close you can see the differences. Your eyebrows are thinner, your eyes a different color, your face thinner…" God, he sounded lame.

Tifa seemed to think so to as she gave a small snort. "Yeah, okay," she said. "So I look like a girl you once knew, so what?"

"That's who I thought you were when you first showed up in town. You made me catch my breath," replied Leon softly. Why was he even saying that? What was wrong with him?

Tifa appeared to break form for a moment, her face softening as if she understood what Leon was trying to say. But then the look was gone, her face turning away from him. Her voice sounded a bit choked as she spoke. "And then I disappointed you by not being her."

Leon couldn't say anything to that. It had been partly true at the time. He had thought it was Rinoa, had pushed his way through the crowd to get to Tifa, to grab her arm and whirl her around, and come face to face with a complete stranger.

_It was definitely the hair,_ he thought to himself. He didn't know what had happened to Rinoa. Leon more or less assumed she was dead, a casualty to the darkness that had swept through their world and destroyed their home. But the day Tifa had shown up, catching his eye from a distance, Leon realized that there was still a small part of him that harbored hope that Rinoa was still alive.

_But if she is, she's probably as fucked up as Cloud is._ It was a sobering thought, but Leon couldn't help but think it. He knew that the Cloud he knew and occasionally saw was nothing like the guy Tifa, Aerith, and even Cid had once known. He was consumed by his demons, wandering the worlds in search of Sephiroth and vengeance. It wasn't enough to have been through a war and to have lost friends to the enemy, and then to lose his best friend to one man's sword. Cloud had likely been tormented by all of those deaths, only to have them resurge with the destruction of his home world, and the return of Sephiroth. He'd never be free of his demons as long as Sephiroth roamed the universe, which in turn meant that Tifa would never really be free either.

_Just like I'll never be free as long as I don't know what happened to Rinoa._

"How much longer do you think they'll be?" Tifa's question jolted Leon out of his thoughts.

"Huh?"

"Cid and them. How much longer do you think it'll take for them to get the door of this ship to open so we can get out finally?"

Leon sighed. He honestly had no idea how long it would take for someone, anyone, to unlock the doors. They had jammed after Leon had more or less crash landed back into the port – something he blamed on Tifa fighting him for the controls. It had been an odd series of events. Tifa had heard on the wireless that Cloud had been spotted in Port Royal and had quickly gone in search of a ship to follow him there. Cid had yelled at her to stop, had yelled at someone to stop her, and it had been Leon that had managed to squeak inside the ship after her. But he hadn't stopped her from going to Port Royal; he had simply gone along with her, letting her get the whole thing out of her system. She needed to chase after Cloud. She needed to follow after him until she couldn't… until she no longer wanted to. That was the only way to get her over him. Mostly, anyway. She'd probably always yearn for Cloud and whatever past they shared, but it was a long ways off until that happened. If Cid kept trying to keep her from Cloud it would only make her more desperate to find him and help him.

Which meant Leon would be in for a real ass chewing by Cid later. He'd blame Leon for letting her get her hopes up, for letting her damage a ship and endanger the lives of others… For getting her heart broken yet again.

Not for the first time, Leon wondered if there wasn't more to Cid's protectiveness over Tifa. He was doing his damnedest to keep her heart intact that Leon often wondered if maybe the older man harbored some kind of feelings for the dark haired woman. It wasn't like Leon couldn't see why. Even he'd have to be blind not to admit that Tifa was an attractive woman – and not just physically. There was something about her spirit that called out to Leon, too… although he guessed it was different than the spirit Cid claimed to have known her to have. The way the old man talked, it was like Tifa was a completely different person now. Burdened, less optimistic, tired… but that wasn't what Leon saw. He saw an inner strength, an underlying determination never to give up; she pushed herself to keep going. She was a fighter, plain and simple.

_What the hell am I even thinking?_ Aloud, Leon said, "Maybe if you hadn't been in such a hurry to get back from Port Royal we wouldn't have landed wrong and jammed the door shut."

"You were the one that tried to take the controls from me. I would have been fine if you had just let me do what I was doing. It doesn't take two people to fly."

"Cid's particular about how the gummi ships are parked."

"_No_, you were just worried that if Cid saw I was at the controls that he would think you hadn't tried to stop me from going in the first place."

"But I didn't."

"Which would have pissed Cid off."

"I'm not afraid of Cid."

"That would make you the first," murmured Tifa softly. She pulled her knees beneath her chin, resting her cheek against them. Leon couldn't help but watch her. If Cid was right about anything when it came to Tifa, it was the fact that she _was_ broken to some degree. Maybe a little lost, too. How much of her felt like she had no purpose other than to chase after Cloud? She needed something to do, something to keep her occupied.

"You should open a bar."

"Excuse me?" Tifa glanced up in confusion, clearly not sure where Leon's latest statement had come from, or even where it was going.

He'd done it again; he had opened his mouth and said something without thinking it through. He was doing that an awful lot lately, especially around Tifa. Leon definitely blamed Aerith for that. "I said you should open a bar," Leon repeated. "Or a restaurant if you'd prefer that. Stop chasing after Cloud and do something for yourself."

"And you think a bar would be for myself?"

Leon shrugged once more. "So open one for the rest of us in need of a few drinks at the end of the day. Open it so Aerith can have a slew of guinea pigs to try out her cooking on. Open it so you can have an excuse to get drunk. I don't really care – you just need to stop looking so damn pathetic all the time. It makes me –" Leon cut himself off, a frown on his face. Where had he been going with that, exactly?

Tifa seemed to echo his thoughts, an eyebrow darting upward. Leon ignored her. "It's just an idea," he muttered. "Do it or don't. What do I care?"

Silence lapsed between them. Tifa seemed to be considered something, her eyes studying Leon and making him squirm a little. Finally, "Are you trying to be nice to be?"

"When have I ever been mean to you?" snapped Leon in mild annoyance.

"I never said you were mean, but… I don't think I've ever heard you try to be encouraging toward someone before."

"You think I'm trying to encourage you?"

"Or make me feel better. One or the other." This time it was Tifa's turn to shrug. "You've been hanging around Aerith for too long."

"Don't I know it," grumbled Leon. He did another double take as a small smile graced Tifa's lips. It was the first time he'd ever seen her do that; normally her face was devoid of much emotion. He had seen her keep tears back, frown, and even lose her temper at people – but he'd never actually seen her smile. And, of course, this wasn't really a full smile, but it was different. And nice. She needed to smile more often.

He _wanted_ her to smile more often.

"I guess it's better than Cid rubbing off on you," said Tifa after a moment. She seemed to relax a bit, letting go of the hold she had around her legs. Leon's heart skipped a beat.

"You think Cid hasn't rubbed off on me?"

"You don't curse like a sailor, and you don't smoke. And you aren't going around calling people 'kid' all the time. So, no, I don't think he's rubbed off on you," she replied. Another skip of the heart, and before Leon could even stop himself he was reaching across the floor to grab a hold of Tifa's arm and pull her toward him. Her eyes widened in surprise, a protest on her lips, but Squall met her halfway, his lips engulfing her own as they went tumbling to the ground.

The kiss was gentle, deepening as Tifa gave a small sigh. She wrapped an arm around his neck, pulling him closer as Leon threaded his fingers through her hair. Tifa rolled onto her back with Squall moving the bulk of his frame over her body.

He hadn't been aiming for this to happen. Leon hadn't even thought about something like it happening before. But he couldn't say he was upset by it. She tasted like cinnamon, probably from the chewing gum she had been chewing on earlier in the day. Her lips were soft, her perfume intoxicating, and all Leon could seem to think was that there was still too much space between them.

Maybe Tifa was thinking along those same lines, because suddenly she was pushing him upward, the kiss breaking. Squall tried to recollect himself, falling back into a seated position, but he never got a chance to catch his breath. Tifa's mouth hungrily captured his again, her body moving into his lap as she moved her hand from his chin to his neck again. _Intoxicating._ That was the word. Everything about Tifa, and this moment, was intoxicating. In a single moment, a moment in which Leon had merely been thinking he'd prove her wrong, he had opened a dam of some sort. He might not know anything about Tifa, but he could feel it. He could taste it, too. The vulnerability, the fear, the hunger, the pain, the want. It was all there.

And Leon was responding to it. He didn't have a clue what he was reflecting back to her, if he was reflecting any emotions at all. Aside from desire, of course. There had to be a part of her that was responding to that part of him. Or maybe that was all of it. Both of them were lonely, although neither one would ever admit it; both of them were floundering without a purpose, and that kind of a connection was hard to just ignore. He bet even if he hadn't pulled her in for a kiss she might have eventually opened up to him anyway. At some point they would have moved past the snark and eye rolls to create some sort of friendship.

_Or we would have just gotten drunk and used that as an excuse instead. _An excuse to what, Leon didn't know. It was hard to think of that seriously with the dark haired woman in his arms, a hand sliding down his back toward his waistband. His own hands were roaming her body as well, one as pushing up the back of her shirt, tucking itself beneath her bra strap as the other hand tried to pull her waist closer to his body.

It was as his thumb moved toward the front of her bra that the door to the gummi ship opened with a whoosh. Tifa pulled away from his mouth with confusion, her eyes blinking at the light that had flooded into the ship. Cid stood there with a slack jaw expression, his cigar barely staying in his mouth. Beside him Aerith colored a rosy pink, a hand going up to her mouth to cover a small giggle. Tifa looked back at Leon, her eyes locking with his, as they both seemed to realize what they had been doing. He half expected her to scramble off of him and run out, but she didn't.

She began to disentangle herself from Leon, pushing herself to her feet and wiping at imaginary dirt on her pants. "It took you long enough," she stated simply, shooting Cid a look. Leon's snicker turned into a cough as Cid's cigar actually did fall out of his mouth.

"I… you… him… you…" Cid was at a loss for words.

Tifa made a small face and brushed past Cid on her way out of the ship. "I'm thinking about opening a bar," she said. "Know of any buildings I can use for that?"

"Oh!" said Aerith excitedly. "There's one down by the river that could work!"

Cid shot Aerith a glare, but the brunette ignored him as she trailed along behind Tifa, continuing to describe the building she had in mind. Leon stayed put, a smile tugging at his lips at the thought of a bar and Tifa behind the counter… and then more thoughts of her _on_ the counter. Cid seemed to sense where Leon's thoughts were going, because he shot an accusing finger in Leon's direction. "Don't even think about it," he warned.

"Too late." With that Leon pushed himself onto his feet, ignoring the sputtering that was coming out of Cid's mouth as Leon walked past him. "Just so you know, Cid, she was right. You haven't really rubbed off on me – I'm pretty sure you haven't made any moves on Aerith since that time she got drunk off eggnog and kissed you under the mistletoe."

"_God-damnit!_"

/

**A/N** – There is absolutely no point to this, but here it is all the same.


End file.
